The borrowed endurance from the Still Iron echo was a lifeline, but a fragile one. It didn't fill him with energy; it simply made the emptiness of exhaustion feel more distant, like a far-off roar instead of a crushing tide. Li Ming moved through the forest like a ghost of the fading night, his feet finding paths of least resistance, his ears straining for any sign of pursuit.
The Stone-Serpents were not behind him. Not yet. But the world was no longer the silent sanctuary of Mirror Lake. He carried the proof in his bones, the heavy, silent weight of a stolen secret from their deepest prison. He felt marked.
As dawn bled grey light through the canopy, he reached the familiar, sorrowful pull of the Reflection Channels. The mournful whispers of the water rose to meet him, but they felt different now. After the focused, razor-sharp agony of the Still Iron scream, "this general sorrow was almost… peaceful." He let it flow through his stilled spirit without resistance and found the small, camouflaged skiff tied where Bo had left it.
Paddling back across the channels and into the hidden inlet felt like crossing a border into a different realm. The air softened, grew sweeter. The oppressive watchfulness of the outside world lifted. When the mists parted and the reed huts of Mirror Lake came into view, a shudder of relief so profound it felt like weakness ran through him.
He staggered up the path toward the Longhouse. He didn't make it.
Wen was waiting for him at the edge of the vegetable garden, Meilin beside her. They didn't speak. Wen took one look at his haggard, filth-caked face and the new, deep stillness in his posture, and simply opened her arms. Li Ming stumbled into her embrace, his iron-clad composure cracking. He didn't cry, but he trembled, the last of the Bastion's cold leaching from his bones into her warm, steady strength.
"Come," she said softly when the shaking stopped. "You need the lake."
She and Meilin led him not to his hut, but directly to the shore. They didn't ask for a story. They sat him on his stone, placed his anchor stone back in his hands, and waited.
Li Ming placed his palms on the water's surface. The lake's immense, calming presence was a balm. He let the stillness of the water connect with the new, hard-won stillness inside him, not the prison's false stillness, but the echo's pure, resilient core. Slowly, the jagged edges of the ordeal smoothed away. The phantom vibrations of the scream faded. He was just a boy, on a stone, by a lake.
Only when his breathing was deep and even did Wen speak.
"The scream is gone."
"It is in the Archive," Li Ming said, his voice rough. "Its master is at peace. The Stone-Serpents… they don't know I was there."
"But they felt the style's passing," Meilin said, her leafy voice concerned. "They will investigate. Their attention is now a knot in the spiritual weave around this region. It will draw tighter."
Li Ming nodded. He understood. He had brought the world's attention closer to their door.
"You did what a Keeper must," Wen said, her hand on his shoulder. "You preserved a truth. The consequences are not your fault, but they are now your responsibility to navigate."
That afternoon, in the Longhouse, he told them everything. The crawl through the drain, the pit, the mad prisoner, the offer of peace, the desperate camouflage, the climb, the escape. The villagers listened in their quiet way, their faces grave.
When he finished, Tao grunted. "You used the echo. Not just as a memory, but as a… brush to paint your own spirit."
"It felt like borrowing a color," Li Ming tried to explain. "From the echo itself. Not its power, but its… nature."
Fen the tuner hummed, a low, considering note. "Interesting. The Archive is not passive. It interacts. You are not a shelf; you are a… materialize. And the echoes are threads. You are beginning to weave."
"…a materialize, he says! I was more of a spilled tapestry myself…"
A potentially powerful metaphor," the Silent Abbot agreed. "If he can learn to select the threads with intention."
"Can you do it again?" Meilin asked. "Without the life-or-deness?"
Li Ming closed his eyes. He reached for the Still Iron echo. It was there, a dense, dark block in his awareness. He remembered the feeling of the prison wall, the desire to be unseen. He invited that essence to shade his presence again.
To the villagers, nothing visible changed. But Meilin gasped softly. Tao narrowed his eyes. Fen's humming stuttered.
"He… faded," Meilin whispered. "Not in sight, but in feeling. Like he's just… part of the background. The fire, the wall, the boy."
Li Ming let the effect drop, a slight headache blooming behind his eyes. "It's tiring. And it's not perfect. It just… makes people's senses want to slide off me."
Wen looked at him, then at the others. "This changes things. He is learning not just to listen, but to use. This is dangerous knowledge. For him, and for those around him."
Before she could elaborate, a new presence interrupted.
It wasn't a scream. It wasn't a pull.
It was a tune.
A few clear, simple notes of flute music, carried on the wind from the direction of the lake. The same melody that had heralded the ferryman.
The Longhouse fell silent. The message was clear.
Wen stood. "He is early. The currents must be shifting. Li Ming, come. The ferryman does not call without reason."
They walked back to the shore. The boat was there, the ferryman a silhouette against the silver-grey lake. He wasn't playing his flute now; he was waiting.
"You have added a great weight to your cargo, Keeper," the ferryman said, his voice carrying across the water. "And you have drawn eyes to these waters. The Stone-Serpent Sect is not stupid. They will trace the spiritual rupture of the Still Iron's passing to its general origin. They will send seekers. Not brutes, but those who sense the unseen."
"The seekers will find the lake?" Li Ming asked, dread cold in his stomach.
"Not if the lake does not wish to be found. But your presence here is a thread they may follow. You are a knot of strange events. You must unravel from this place, for its safety and for your own path."
"Where will I go?" The peace of Mirror Lake, so hard-won, was being ripped away.
"Back to the source," the ferryman said simply. "The Azure Archives. It is the only place that can hide you completely now. And it is time you learned to be its Keeper in truth, not just a refugee within its walls."
Li Ming's heart clenched. The Archives were a tomb of ghosts and silence. But the ferryman was right. It was his only home. And he had left Master An's body there, unattended.
"You must also understand," the ferryman continued, his tone grave, "what you did in the Bastion. You did not just collect an echo. You performed a Resonance, using an echo's nature to affect the world. This is the first step on the Keeper's true path. But the Archives are your library and your forge. To learn this safely, you must be within its walls."
Wen placed a bundle in Li Ming's hands, fresh clothes, more dried food, a larger water skin. "You are always welcome here, Li Ming. When you are stronger. When you can be the calm at the center of your own storm, and not the storm itself."
The villagers gathered behind her, a silent, solid wall of farewell. Tao, Meilin, Fen, their faces were sad, but resolute.
There were no lengthy goodbyes. They were people who understood necessity. Li Ming bowed deeply to them all, his throat too tight for words. Then he turned and waded out to the skiff, climbing aboard.
The ferryman pushed off. The sounds of the shore,the rustle of reeds, the soft murmurs of the villagers, faded into the mist.
They moved in silence for a time, back through the channels.
"Will they be safe?" Li Ming asked, staring back into the concealing fog.
"The lake has hidden for centuries," the ferryman replied. "It will hide again. Your thread, once cut, will blow away in the wind. For now." He poled steadily. "Your task is different. You return to a mountain of ghosts with two new, powerful echoes. One is a stumbling drunkard's paradox. The other is the silence after a scream. They will change the balance of that place. You must be the one to restore it."
Li Ming thought of the vast, humming silence of the True Archive. He thought of Iron Saint Bai's gruff pride, Lady Silken Death's sharp wit, the Silent Abbot's deep peace, and the new, chattering sorrow of the Drunken God. And now, this immense, heavy block of Still Iron. A council of the dead, living in his mind.
He was no longer just a boy who heard whispers.
He was a library walking. A battlefield of lost legacies. And he was heading home to a fortress of silence that was about to become very, very loud.
The boat reached the rocky bank where Lao Jiang's path began. The ferryman did not beach it, simply held it steady against the current.
"From here, you walk. Follow the mountain's pull. It is your anchor now, as much as any stone."
Li Ming stepped onto the bank. He turned. "Thank you. For the passage. For the truth."
The ferryman inclined his head. "The truth is a current, Keeper. You can float on it, or you can drown in it. Learn the right one." He pushed the boat back into the flow, lifted his flute, and began to play that same, mournful tune, blending with the river's song as he vanished into the mist.
Li Ming stood alone on the bank. He adjusted the bundle on his back. He felt the deep, familiar pull of the mountain, not a scream, not a call, but a steady, gravitational tug. Home.
He took a breath, feeling the cool solidity of the Still Iron echo, the playful imbalance of the Drunken God, and the steadfast calm he had learned at the lake.
Then he turned his face toward the towering, silent peak, and began to climb.